Wednesday, January 25, 2006

I'm sitting at one of the Win2000 workstations in McCarty's computer lab, the place where I teach 8th graders on Tuesdays. I'm waiting for Tara to finish some project.

Earlier, I was painting a thumbnail of my vista here in PDX, sharing it with some community college math teachers, who could use some fresh thinking. Students have become increasingly bored and commensurately rebellious about the traditional math department fare. My sense is we've done way too little to rethink our pedagogy in light of what new technology is up to providing. My work here in Portland aims to make up for lost time. If you've been reading my blogs, you already pretty much know all about it. Geek TV, Saturday Academy and like that.

I'm looking at chartering various new schooling options, including for the home based, that will bring new opportunities into focus. The strategy is not to drum up funding so much as give clear definition to the curriculum, and have it fly on its merits. That might not be the best strategy in every context, but here in Portland, we've already been given funds, by Google (for open source development), by Bill and Melinda Gates (for redesigning high schools), and by Meyer Memorial Trust (a principal local player).